[fwd from J. Kopp:] Eells ms dictionary

[David D. Robertson]

[Another rejected posting from the server.  --  Dave R.]



From: Jeffrey Kopp <jeffkopp at attbi.com>
>User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.0.2)
Gecko/20030208 Netscape/7.02
>X-Accept-Language: en-us, en
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>To: Ros' Haruo <lilandbr at HOTMAIL.COM>
>CC:  CHINOOK at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
>Subject: Re: Eells' Manuscript Dictionary (was: Recent article on CJ)
>References: <BAY2-F1319X0qZpEBuz000a67cc at hotmail.com>
>Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
> boundary="------------030700050606000802070504"
>
>
>--------------030700050606000802070504
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>I wonder if this might be it:
>
>"Eells, Myron,  1893, Dictionary of Chinook Jargon Language, with
>grammatical notes, unpublished MS, Whitman College Library, Walla Walla,
>Washington," is listed in UNBC's Northwest Coast Knowledge Base,
>http://vaughan.fac.unbc.ca/anderson/bib/nwcbibe.html.  The size of this
>work is not noted.
>
>It's not shown in Whitman's Penrose library catalog, however:
>http://library.whitman.edu/  A call or email to the special collections
>desk of Penrose may be necessary to confirm this mention or obtain
>details of its nature.
>
>In his article in the American Anthropologist (July 1894), he notes:
>"When I came to the Skokomish reservation, in 1874, three entirely
>different Indian languages besides the Chinook jargon were spoken here
>by Indians belonging to as many tribes. My intention was to learn the
>one native to the place, but I soon found that if I were to do so I
>would not be able to converse with the Indians belonging to the other
>two tribes; so I learned the Chinook jargon, and found it very useful."
> He mentions having found 1,402 Jargon words, of which "only 740 are now
>used in this region, and of these I have recorded 374 which I have found
>in no other dictionary, nearly all of which are English in origin,"
>which suggests a work of the size reported.
>
>Someone familiar with Eells' life and work might be able to piece this
>together.  From these references it appears he began compiling a
>personal dictionary from local use and previously published sources at
>Skokomish in the mid-1870s and summarized it in the descriptive article
>published in the Am. Anthropologist in 1984. I see he lived 13 more
>years, so it is an interesting question whether he was unable to
>complete his dictionary, find a publisher, or chose not to publish and
>merely placed his previously compiled personal notes at Whitman in 1893.
>
>In his 1909 dictionary, Shaw took his "pronouncing vocabulary" of "two
>hundred and seventy-five words, employing the diacritically marked
>letters," from "the work of the late Myron Eells, than whom no higher
>authority ever lived."  He cites the manuscript (specifying "5 vols.
>folio") and quotes from its introduction:
>
>"Eells. Manuscript Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon, 5 vols. folio. Note
>from Eells' Introduction: "A number of dictionaries have been published
>in the Chinook Jargon language, and it may seem superfluous to write
>another; still thus far all of them are small and are based on the
>language as it was forty or fifty years ago. Gibbs' Dictionary was for
>many years by far the best, and is yet in many respects, as it gives the
>origin of nearly all the words and much other valuable information, but
>it was written nearly forty years ago. I have used it very much in
>preparing this work. Hale's Trade Language of Oregon or Chinook Jargon
>is recent and is excellent, especially in its Introductory part; far
>better than any which preceded it, but that excellent man and scholar
>has labored under the disadvantage of not having mingled much with those
>who have used the language for about fifty years, and so has been unable
>to note a great share of the changes which have taken place. The
>dictionaries of Gill, Hibben, Tate, Lowman and Hanford and Good are all
>small; are in as condensed form as possible, being intended for pocket
>use for travellers, traders and learners, and in this way have done good
>work for what they were intended. The two latter, however, only have the
>Chinook-English part. The dictionary of Durieu is very meager, while
>that of Demers and St. Onge is out of print, and both are intended
>rather more for use by the Catholics than by the public....  Having used
>it (Jargon) for eighteen years, having talked in it, sung in it, prayed
>and preached in it, translated considerable into it, and thought in it,
>I thought I knew a little about the language, but when I began to write
>this dictionary I found that there was very much which I did not know
>about it, but which I wished to know in order to make this dictionary as
>perfect as it should be. This is especially so in regard to the
>pronunciation of words which are not used on Puget Sound, the
>introduction of new words, and the marking of those which are obsolete.
>In preparing these pages, I have tried to note the following items,--the
>different ways of spelling each word with the authority for each, the
>proper pronunciation, the origin, part of speech, meaning, the place
>where it is used, if used at all, a sentence or more to show the use of
>a large share of the words, and the phrases which are derived from a
>combination of words, which answer to a single word in
>English."--Skokomish, Union City, March, 1893."
>
>An anthropologist at Whitman, George Castile, edited "The Indians of
>Puget Sound: The Notebooks of Myron Eells" (Seattle: University of
>Washington Press, 1985).
> http://www.whitman.edu/anthropology/castile.htm However, the UW Press
>site does not return this book on a search by title or author, though
>Powell's shows a couple used copies ($75 and $40) of 470 pages (ISBN
>0295962623). I see Portland State's library has a copy; it may well be
>circulating by many NW university libraries. But I also see a version
>listed as published by Whitman in 1999 of 470 pages at Amazon. This is
>listed as "out of print" as well, but a number of used copies are
>available from $20 to $40.
>
>I wonder whether this compilation might contain part or all of Eells'
>Chinook Jargon dictionary manuscript. One could drop by Powell's or PSU
>to check, or the editor's email is shown on his curriculum vitae Web
>page above.
>
>Jeff
>
>Ros' Haruo wrote:
>
>>> From: "David D. Robertson" <ddr11 at COLUMBIA.EDU>
>>> Reply-To: "David D. Robertson" <ddr11 at COLUMBIA.EDU>
>>> To: CHINOOK at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
>>> Subject: Re: Recent article on CJ
>>> Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2003 00:29:57 -0400
>>>
>>> About another note in the same article -- did Eells really leave a
>>> 5-volume
>>> Jargon dictionary manuscript?  Is this in the American Philosophical
>>> Society library or some similar archive?
>>
>>
>> I was just meaning to ask about the whereabouts of the Eells MS
>> dictionary
>> the other day. I don't know how many volumes, but Shaw clearly refers
>> to it
>> and says it's the non-plus-ultra authority (I've forgotten his precise
>> words, but it's high praise). I believe his comment was in connection
>> with
>> the pronunciation section of his book, which I was looking at recently.
>>
>> lilEnd
>